No load today, but it wasn't dispatch's fault. The culprit was the outside Christmas lights.
Wife put them up Sunday, plugs them into the outlet in the garage. No problem, right? Wrong.
I was up this morning when she yelled that she heard a couple of "pops" and now her curling iron won't work. Went downstairs into the basement and sure enough the circuit breaker was tripped. Thing was I could have sworn I saw a wisp of smoke. Tried to reset the breaker. Bad move. Huge spark, LARGE wisp of smoke. Great, I thought, a wire fried somewhere. I go into the garage to get some tools and on my way back in I notice that the garage door opener buttons are dark. Sure enough, garage doors have no power, but the overhead light works. WTF. Went out to the truck, it's heaters aren't running either. Back to the breaker box. Yep, only one breaker tripped. Up to the bathroom. Pulled the GCI outlet and yep, power wire and wire nut completely melted, plug reset switch had fused. It's the original and the house is 30 years old, so I suppose it was due. I'm standing there trying to figure out what the upstairs bathroom has in common with the garage.
First, call dispatch and have them put me on an 8 hour break. Second, repair the damaged wiring and replace the GCI plug. Third, see what works. Everything back on. Breaker and GCI plug trip. Whomever wired this house is an idiot.
Believe it or not, this circuit has three outlets in the garage and the one outlet in the upstairs bathroom on it. I unplug everything and reset the outlet and breaker. Then plug everything back in one by one. Garage doors, fine. Truck heaters, fine. Christmas lights, POP
Soooo, solution is easy. Don't run the truck heaters while the Christmas lights are on as together they draw too many amps for the circuit. Go back out into the garage to put tools away. Overhead light is out. NOW WHAT!!!!!!!!
Blown bulb. BAH HUMBUG
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Electricity 101
Posted by Wolfeman at 1:16 AM
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3 comments:
I can definitely relate. We currently rent part of a duplex (bottom part of an old house). The first year we were here, we started having electrical problems. It turns out that when they converted the house into two apartments, they didn't upgrade the electrical system. It was a 60 Amp service that had two larger fuses and 4 or 5 other fused circuits. So there were two apartments running off of 6 or 7 circuits. We are taking our washer and dryer, our electric stove (gas stove upstairs), two refrigerators, lights, ceiling fans, and about 4 window air conditioners between the two apartments. A fuse would pop and most of the upstairs would go out along with two of our ceiling fans/lights. I started smelling the smell of electrical burning. Called the landlord who calls his jack-of-all-trades repairman who told him that nothing would get hot enough to cause a fire. I argue because I grew up with a master electrician (as well as a master carpenter, a master plumber and a master finish carpenter) and have done a lot on construction sites myself, but the landlord won't listen. Two days later, the fuse blows again and nothing happens when the fuse is replaced. Landlord has the repairman come out and finds that several wires burnt in two. Repairman replaces the old fuse box with a breaker box but doesn't bother mapping the circuits. So, know we have 100 Amp of service but one circuit may run some of my lights and some upstairs, etc. -TT
Sounds like it's time to find a new place if you can before a fire actually starts. Sounds like it's only a matter of time.
If you're serious about trucking go to www.pumpkindriver.com or follow the link on the blog. You can learn a lot there and you don't have to be a truck driver.
I visit pd.com but I haven't been over there lately.
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